“Bully fer you!” he cried, slapping his knee; “struck pyrites (he pronounced it pie-rights) fer shore that trip, Charley.”
The girl, too, laughed, but quietly. She was just a little touched, though only this winter she had left Bismarck because the place would have no more of her.
In the face of Billy’s approval, the patriarch fell silent.
About midnight the four inmates of the frontier hotel were awakened by a tremendous racket outside. The stranger arose, fully clothed, from his bunk, and peered through the narrow open window. A dozen horses were standing grouped in charge of a single mounted man, indistinguishable in the dark. Out of the open door a broad band of light streamed from the saloon, whence came the noise of voices and of boots tramping about.
“It is Black Hank,” said Billy, at his elbow, “Black Hank and his outfit. He hitches to this yere snubbin’-post occasional.”
Black Hank in the Hills would have translated to Jesse James farther south.
The stranger turned suddenly energetic.
“Don’t you make no fight?” he asked.
“Fight?” said Billy, wondering. “Fight? Co’se not. Hank don’t plunder me none. He jest ambles along an’ helps himself, and leaves th’ dust fer it every time. I jest lays low an’ lets him operate. I never has no dealin’s with him, understand. He jest nat’rally waltzes in an’ plants his grub-hooks on what he needs. I don’t know nothin’ about it. I’m dead asleep.”
He bestowed a shadowy wink on the stranger.